Indoor Farming Feeding Hundreds Each Day in Connecticut
November 1, 2017,
MERIDEN, Conn. (WTNH) — Indoor farming is underway in the state of Connecticut thanks to a group of young entrepreneurs.
Trifecta Ecosystems Incorporated has just fully filled out its new downtown Meriden aquaponics facility with thousands of plants growing in about 12 inches of water vertically and on a flat surface.
This historic facility is a massive former ball-bearing plant that they fully transformed.
CEO Spencer Curry says never in his wildest imagination did he expect to be in this kind of start-up business because he had been a Latin and philosophy major, but here he is and his company is thriving.
“We can feed about 300 people per week…An 11-ounce container which is like that large container at Whole Foods,” Curry stated.
“This is lettuce in a vertical grow tower,” Curry explained. “You’re actually seeing them hang vertically like that and that allows us to get more plants per square feet.”
Curry showed us other growing methods as well.
“This is actually another style of growing called deep water culture and this is the style we choose for our actual commercial farm in Meriden,” he said. “We use a high-efficiency LED grow lights from Fluence which is a company that we are working with for our commercial farm here.”
Curry said his business is mostly growing kale, lettuce, salad greens, cooking greens and herbs.
“Our model is about building our own network of farms and integrating that with both the existing farms that are out there and new farms that our clients are starting,” Curry said. “We honestly see Connecticut as primed to be a nationwide leader in indoor and controlled environment agriculture, but we also see our company as a much larger company than just the state. We want to develop our model here in Connecticut and make Connecticut really the de facto state in the nation to look toward controlled environment agriculture or CEA. We want to build the city that feeds itself and we want that to start here in Connecticut.”
Curry’s company works a lot with schools, so if you want to grow some greens vertically in your classroom, get in touch with them.
It grows right out of a fish tank, you farm fish and plants together.
You can suscribe to the greens right out of their farm in Meriden. It’s located at 290 Pratt Street.
To find out more, go to www.trifectaecosystems.com.